Sixteen-year-old Jared Spackman recently won a statewide graphic design competition sponsored by the Pennsylvania Youth Suicide Prevention Initiative. The contest was held for the first time last year and aimed to “engage students around developing their own concepts for youth suicide prevention,” said Matthew Wintersteen, initiative co-chair.

The contest accepted entries in four different categories: posters, audio recordings, 30-second PSA videos and 60-second PSA videos. Although there were some guidelines in place — for example, entries couldn’t include information about actual suicidal behavior — the students were encouraged to generate original ideas. “I could certainly work with other adults and create a bunch of posters for people to use, but it’s much more powerful, I think, for youth to be able to create those messages for each other,” Wintersteen said.

Spackman heard about the contest through his graphic arts class at North Montco Technical Career Center. He decided to enter the contest because he sees suicide prevention as an important cause. In his time in the North Penn School District, he’s learned a lot about suicide and prevention, he said. “I thought, ‘This is something I should try to promote.’”

The 10th-grade student was one of five to submit a project to graphic arts teacher Tina Filice, though she could only send one poster to be considered for a prize. She got together with some of her fellow teachers and together, they chose Spackman’s poster.

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The poster reads, “Be a light for your friends, help prevent loss,” and it also features the phone number for a suicide prevention hotline. The slogan, which he came up with on his own, appears to be illuminated. He incorporated light into his design because it draws viewers in, he said. Another decision was to put the focus on the slogan rather than on the images. “You want the message to be seen and for the image to support it,” Spackman said. He created the design using turquoise and purple, the two colors typically used to promote suicide prevention. Although he went through a few different versions of the poster, they all had the same basic idea, he said.

Spackman’s poster was one of 12 submitted to the contest from throughout the state. The initiative’s advisory committee narrowed those entries down to five finalists, and then those five were posted to the initiative’s website for public voting. The committee was looking for a poster that conveyed a hopeful message and that would work to deter youth suicide, Wintersteen said. A final winner was chosen by combining the committee’s scores with those of the public.

“It really conveys a positive message about being supportive for your friends,” Wintersteen said of Spackman’s poster. “If someone were struggling or had a friend who was struggling, they would know what number they could call to help that person.”

Although he’s always been interested in art, Spackman first started drawing just a few years ago. He started out with an app on his iPod, using just his finger to create detailed images. He estimates that he now has 200 or 300 drawings, most of which are landscapes. He also likes drawing animals, though he’s usually not able to draw them from scratch; instead, he looks at a picture of the animal and tries to replicate it.

He’s currently working on a project sponsored by the Graphic Arts Education and Research Foundation. “The student has to come up with creative and innovative packaging,” Filice said. Spackman chose to create a box for colored pencils. “It’s something simpler that you could make more out of,” he said.

Many of Filice’s graphic arts students go on to pursue careers in the field, and Spackman might be one of them when he graduates. “I think (design) is one of the more prominent skills that I have,” he said.

The prize for winning the Pennsylvania Youth Suicide Prevention Initiative contest is tickets to a May 16 Harrisburg Senators baseball game, where Spackman will be recognized along with the contest’s other winners. When the contest was held last year, grant money was used to print large copies of the winning posters to display in different places, Wintersteen said. They haven’t received the same funding this year, but they’re still hoping to print hard copies of Spackman’s poster. Digital copies of the designs are also available on the initiative’s website, www.payspi.org, and the public is welcome to print and display them to promote suicide prevention.